Wet Papa Grazuul

“Wet Papa Grazuul”
Rise of the Runelords episode
Episode no.	Episode 56
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Dorothea Gloriana Honeypot Nell Velicia
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Skulls' Crossing" "A Plea for Help"
Rise of the Runelords chapter list

In this chapter the skull shaped control structure of the dam is explored and its guardian encountered.

Wet Papa Grazuul

We continued on along the top of the dam to what we thought to be a control tower. It was shaped like a skull. The builders didn't have much imagination. Everything was skull shaped. There were two double doors on each side of the skull, and one had been blocked. The holes for eyes and mouth were open holes as strangely shaped windows. We climbed up to the holes, me to the eye to the left. It was high up but quite easily climbed and I did it stealthily. I hid behind a curtain of green plants that was covering most of the inner walls. Inside was what I would guess was a troll-ettin crossbreed. Not the most successful of creatures as it was quarreling with itself. Honeypot spoke up and tried to befriend it but it got angry and charged. We attacked it and soon it was bleeding heavily. Gloriana yelled threats at it in the ugly language giantish and it gave up. We talked with it asking about the dam but it was very stupid and knew nothing of how it worked. We tried to tell it we were trying to help, but it started arguing with itself again. Then Gloriana said something pointing out at the ogres. Both of the troll's heads shouted the same thing and it ran out heading for the bodies. We all got inside.

From the door we could vaguely hear other trolls banging the door, shouting something in giantish. As we were trying to save the dam, we didn't want to kill its guardians so we looked for other ways of finding the controls. There was a window overlooking the canyon and the river, but I knew there were more windows out there. We tied a rope around my waist and I climbed out the window. It was easy to climb the wall as it was covered with skulls. I climbed over and peeked into another room. It was empty so I climbed in. After I had tied the rope inside the others got a real easy climb and followed. There was a big door but it wouldn't be any favorable situation if we had to fight our way through. I remembered more windows along the wall outside so I climbed out on the wall again and sneaked up to the next window. That room was also empty. We did the same thing again, but Dorothea didn't want to climb so she forced the door open. It was lots of hard work, but she thought it was safer. There were several big doors but only the loudest of sounds would be heard through them. On the double doors in the middle some text was written. The other said it was in giantish and said:
"Below dwells Wet Papa Grazuul. All hail to Papa Grazuul!"
First we looked behind one of the side doors. It was an empty hallway leading out and to the room where we thought the trolls was. There were signs of previous fighting. Probably the ogres had passed through there. We shut the door and peeked through the double doors. A set of stairs led down and we followed them.

The stairs ended in another set of doors and behind was a big room with a pool with really icky water with some oily yellowish stuff floating in it. There was four more doors and two strange alcoves in the other end of the room. There also was some weird stuff painted on the wall between the alcoves. We went along the walls around the room and saw that in the alcove there were bars and behind them, a circle surrounding a demon. It looked very weak. I hid in a corner near a door. Velicia said that the demon was a pit fiend. The other alcove had a similar circle but only a small pile of dust instead of the demon.

The Wet Papa Grazuul.

A sneaky troll suddenly attacked me from behind. I got really hurt when it stabbed me with a hayfork. I stabbed it back and tumbled away. Everyone charged it so I tried a new move by slipping in under the big thing and held on, stabbing it wildly. Velicia finally killed it and it turned into water, splashing down. It slowly poured into the pool.

The others read what they said was magical instructions on the wall. Gloriana talked to the demon but got bored and went and opened the door to a room on the other side from the one Grazuul came from. I tried asking the demon how long it had been there but it didn't answer so I also got bored by the uncooperative demon and followed Gloriana. The room had a small model of the whole dam. I went over there and fiddled with it. It was a working toy, but sadly not controlling the dam but showing the effects of the controls. In the central room they finally figured out that creatures placed in the magical circles was drained of power. That powered an automatic system that regulated the ports or something. Dorothea muttered something looking at the wall. Then she stepped into the other circle. Things happened and the water started flushing through the pools. I noted that the troll "Wet Papa Grazuul" had been regenerating in one of the pools but was now flushed out. I hoped it would meet the Black Magga and get eaten. Thinking of eating I went back to the other room and took out some bread and chicken. While eating I checked the model and it had opened the small dam ports, just as we hoped that the big dam had. Wen we got outside we could see it had opened them just as the model and water was pouring out. The water level on the other side slowly lowered, showing that the lake appeared to be artificial and was actually an old quarry from the time when the dam was built. The missing stone had built a lot more than just the dam.